October 5, 2018

A financial history of Donald Trump: From daddy's little boy, to Putin's best partner

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/5/1801568/-A-financial-history-of-Donald-Trump-From-daddy-s-little-boy-to-Putin-s-best-partner?utm_campaign=recent
"By 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts was forced to file bankruptcy. And this time, it really was Donald Trump’s money and Donald Trump’s assets on the line. Trump couldn’t get a loan. He couldn’t get a casino license. His days as a would-be casino mogul were over. Just as Donald Trump was being selected to be a pretend billionaire on The Apprentice, his real life failures were catching up with him. This was also the period of Trump trying to make money off of just being Trump. Trump water, Trump steaks, and Trump magazine were just a few of the ‘T’ brands that appeared, and swiftly disappeared, in the mid-aughts.  The threat that Trump would ever be ousted from the eponymous tower built under his father’s reign was always remote. At his low point, Trump still controlled a plethora of properties that did produce an income in the millions and he really was able to sell his name, though never for the kind of numbers he’s asserted. But Trump’s net worth was a fraction of what he claimed, and his ability to make a deal for more than a used car was far more constrained than his eight-figure income would suggest. Fortunately for Trump, he did have a way out of his doldrums. It went back to Atlantic City. Not to his investors, but the friends he made laundering money for Russian mobsters."